Remember that most corps members are now posted to schools and other establishments in the rural areas. And except for the few private and federal institutions, most work places are state-owned and so the likelihood of these corps members being retained is almost nil because they are usually non-indigenes. Obviously this is a weighty problem without an easy solution because every year more graduates are added to the brimming population of jobless post-NYSC graduates.
I hereby proffer some ideas, which should ameliorate the situation. First the three-week orientation exercise should be extended to four to six weeks. Rather than spend both mornings and evenings on tedious para-military exercises, as is the case presently, the orientation programme should incorporate a skill acquisition phase which should replace the evening exercises.
This phase could be divided into modules of one-week duration or more. Each module should involve training in a particular area such as computer appreciation and maintenance; machine fabrication; textile manufacturing; and food processing among many others. Corps members can then pick two areas of interest and a rotation system is worked out so that after the orientation exercise, every corps member would be proficient in at least two technical fields.
Second, after the orientation exercise, corps members should be given their entire stipend en bloc so that those who are enterprising would have the capital to start up some small scale businesses in their areas of primary assignment. After the service year the proportion of corps members that stay behind in various parts of the country would definitely increase.
Hence the purpose of national integration would be further promoted in contrast to what portends presently where most corps members either return to where they came from or to the cities to look for blue-collar opportunities, which are few and far between.
Armed with a skill or two, and some financial support the corps members would definitely be in a better stead to face the challenges ahead. The problem of unemployment would be further depreciated. Of course the importance of having youths engaged in productive activities cannot be over-emphasised, because the reverse leads to an increase in the social ills already rife in our society. It is in the best interest of all the stakeholders, policy-makers and the nation at large, if the scheme is dynamic enough to face current trends in society.
Ibanga Inyang,
Calabar, Cross River State
Pornography and HIV/AIDS
SIR: Success in roll-back HIV/AIDS campaigns would only be attainable if policies confess to a connection between the plague and pornography. Pornography in musical, home-videos, pictures, advertisements, books, dressing has over-sexualised our minds therefore placing it beyond the reach of self-control.
This is the first condition for HIV spread, condoms or not. How come abortion cases are very prevalent and still escalating Governments worldwide now feel obliged to curb smoking and obesity despite consumer preferences. They need to do the same thing with obscenities and pornography.
Damola Awoyokun,
Ibadan, Oyo State
Discriminatory school fees in Sokoto
SIR: We have information that the government of Sokoto State has sadly commenced an unpleasant and rather dangerous policy of raising fees payable by students in the state-owned higher institutions, with an especially higher rate for "non-indigenes". This is contained in reports by some national news dailies including The Guardian, Thursday, August 5, 2004 on pages 3 and 4.
Students in the state's colleges of education would now pay N10,000 instead of N6,000, while non-indigenes would pay N15,000 instead of N10,000. In the state's polytechnic, the fee for non-indigenes has been raised from N2,500 to N5000 for remedial students and from N4,500 to N6000 for certificate and Pre-ND among others. In addition, bed space in the college of education and polytechnic would attract a fee of N10,000.
This move by the Sokoto State government apart from representing an atrocious, anti-poor, education commercialisation programme is also an affront on the letters and spirit of the Nigerian constitution in that the idea of charging discriminatory fees on the basis of indigeneship of a state or otherwise is a curtailment of the right to education of every Nigerian citizen. Such policy is also capable of institutionalising the much undesirable indigene / non-indigene, settler / native dichotomy, which has been a stubborn source of ethnic / religious conflagrations in parts of the country especially in the North.
For the avoidance of doubt, the Education Rights Campaign (ERC) is opposed to any form of fee increment and / or introduction in schools as it amounts to parrying basic responsibilities of government to students and their hapless parents who are already overburdened by the seeming unending economic woes confronting the poor working class people as a result of government's numerous anti-poor, neo-liberal policies. Education being an unavoidable tool of development should be a central concern for the government to be funded adequately from public resources.
We call on the Sokoto State government to withdraw from this dangerous, anti-poor path, abolish the discriminatory fees against the so-called non-indigenes and / or any other fees whatsoever and rather massively invest public resources in the state's public education system.
Wale Eleto,
Co-ordinator, Education Rights Campaign (ERC),
Ile-Ife, Osun State
